[font color=\'#000000\']Highlights certainly a problem with digital! I recently did a shoot where firemen were the guests of honour. I used my regular Nikons with regular print film, and used my Canon Powershot S30 as another backup. All shots were with flash.Pictures with conventional print film came out good. Images with the digital camera were horrific! The luminous armbands and legbands on the firemen's uniforms glowed to an incandescence that intruded to the surrounding area in the image. My skill level with Photoshop Elements unable to correct any of this, if indeed it is possible. - so for professionals changing over to digital,yet another consideration.[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']I'm not sure I would call it a 'problem', but it is an issue. As Michael said, you just have to watch out for it. I always pop off a test shot first, and look at the histogram. You most definitely do NOT want to clip on the high end (i.e. there is a brick wall on the right side of the histogram). If you see that, back off the exposure a click or two and try again. If you clip on the dark side, it is usually not a big loss, but clip on the bright side and you are done with.

As for the reflective material you describe, I have many shots in which I encounter a similar situation. Close to sunset, the scotchlite stickers on trains I shoot like to glow, but the D30 always renders them as a milky white, even if they are not clipped in the histogram. My solution is to select the blue channel (the stickers are yellow) and darken up the light areas which should in reality be dark. Works like a charm for me.

[font color=\'#000000\']I've read that highlight detail is still an issue with digital cameras- up to the previous generation (nikon d1x, canon 1d). Is this still an issue? or has it been solved? I didn't see any mention of the issue on the 1ds review. thanks,Matt[/font]

I presume you meant to say, "As long as you're aware of it you can work around it", much like the film photographers must? Being aware of something does not alter it.

But this brings up a topic rarely discussed in which I am rather interested: what is the "film curve" of digital imaging devices? I've never seen one published, but maybe it exists in the technical documentation from the chip maker? Anyone know?[/font]

[font color=\'#000000\']After shooting for two years with the Canon D30, I don't think it's so much that highlights are a "problem", but rather that one must be careful with one's exposure - much as with slide film. When we talk about the "lattitude" of film, we generally understand that negative film has a wider lattidude than slide film. I suspect that most digital SLRs are someplace in between - but have not confirmed this.

As with any camera/film combination, when shooting digital one must learn about the metering system and, through experience, learn how to set the "correct" exposure for a scene. Most digital cameras offer the advantage of showing a historgram of the shot you just took, which provides immediate feedback. If you see that the exposure was wrong, you can make adjustments for subsequent shots.